Monster Gila has submitted their multiplayer space shooter, NovaRift Arena, for app store approval. Played from a top-down perspective, up to 16 players pilot one of four different spacecrafts while vying for supremacy. It’s every pilot for himself in the black of space, and physics play an important role in combat. Your ship’s components take damage separately, meaning that you may lose your weapons or thrusters in the course of battle and have to make due without. This can lead to some intense battles and triumphant tales as you strive to defend yourself in a partially disabled ship.

At time of debut, the game will include an online multiplayer mode that can be played over both 3G and WiFi networks, and an offline training mode. When played offline — good fun in its own right — the player will be pitted against increasingly difficult waves drones. The four available ships vary in maneuverability, defense and payload, and should make for interesting battles when thrown up against each other in multiplayer. Unfortunately, there’s no one playing online just now, while the game is pending release. I enjoyed playing against human opponents in earlier preview builds, though, and look forward to taking the final version of the game online when it releases in early April.

NovaRift Arena will launch with two versions. There will be a free Lite version that let’s you use the first 2 ships, has 36 levels of offline play, and allows 30 minutes of online play. The full version will have an introductory price of $1.99, which gets you unlimited online play, infinite offline levels, and access to all 4 ships (as well as any new ships added in future updates). Both versions will feature in-game achievements and leaderboards via Open Feint integration.

Check out the preview video and screens below for a look at the game play, and look for our review of NovaRift Arena when it launches in April.